WARTIME SWEETHEARTS – PANCAKE ORION

“Take me out to the brink of all things”, sings Louise Nutting on The Sea Ceiling, a light-footed, mercurial waltz from her debut album, Pancake Orion.  A twenty-something from Sydney who writes and performs as Wartime Sweethearts, her inclinations lean sometimes towards the quirky (think Coco Rosie, Bat for Lashes),  but there’s an earthy pop sensibility at work here that keeps her from toppling over. With its recorders and pizzicato violins, The Warmest Chord is a sugary rush, giddy as first love.  Her singing is gorgeous: grounded in jazz, warm and affecting, and capable of swooping flights of fancy. As a lyricist, Nutting is alive to the surreal undercurrents of the everyday: “And all your tides move up and down my walls, till I can barely taste the air at all” (The Sea Ceiling). On Rough Ruby, little curlicues of electronic noise wrap themselves around her tender vocals (“We are sewn into the seam, stitched in tightly”), electric piano, and Abel Cross’s double bass. You’ll want to spend time with this album. I think it’s very special.
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